What is the object that will collide with the Moon on March 4?

A new episode was added to the mysterious object that will crash with the Moon on March 4, after the Chinese authorities completely ruled out that the device belongs to the propellant of the Chang’e 5-T1 launched in 2014, as recently reported by different media.

The week In the past, astronomer Bill Gray first identified the object and attributed it to a SpaceX rocket and reported the imminent impact.

However, NASA engineer Jon Giorgini ruled out that possibility, pointing to the Chinese Chang’e 5-T1 rocket booster. Gray checked his calculations and agreed that the object moving toward the Moon was called WE768A, ie the Chinese Chang’e rocket booster launched into space in 2014.

“The object has expected brightness, and has shown up at expected times and moving in a reasonable orbit,” Gray wrote. But looking back, he added, “I should have noticed that there were weird things.” For this reason, he acknowledged his mistake and remarked that this “only emphasizes the problem we have with the lack of proper tracking of these objects in deep space.”

This seemed to solve the enigma, but this On Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry completely dismissed that claim, noting that the propellant said to be on a collision course with the satellite “safely entered the Earth’s atmosphere and was totally incinerated.

Beijing “conscientiously defends the sustainability of activities in outer space,” spokeswoman Wang Wenbin said at a regular press conference.

According to specialized space media, it could be Chinese space debris or some SpaceX rocket stage, as mentioned at the beginning, but none “has been able to identify it or they simply haven’t they want to do”.

It should be noted that the alleged piece of rocket already made a close flyby of the moon on January 5, according to Bill Gray, a data analyst and writer on space debris issues.

It is probable that in the following days more will be known about this artifact as soon as it approaches the satellite; what will not change, will be its trajectory, so its collision is expected.